FBI arrests islander on mail fraud charges

Friday

Dec 21, 2007 at 2:00 AM

By Margaret Carroll-Bergman I&M Staff Writer

While the search continues for two principals and an assistant principal in the Nantucket school system, Caryl Brayton Toole was this week appointed interim principal of the Cyrus Peirce middle school. Toole will be paid a pro-rated annual salary of $115,000.

“She showed an interest to start early on and she comes highly recommended,” said schools superintendent Robert Pellicone. “The ads are running and we are collecting resumes. We hope to start interviewing for the principals in January.”

Currently, Toole, who lives in Hull, is the project director for leadership development at the Massachusetts Department of Education, a position she has held since 2006.

She has also served as the superintendent and school director at the Pan American School of Porto Alegre in Brazil from 2003-2005 and as elementary school principal and director of curriculum and instruction at the Pan American School of Bahai in Brazil from 2000-2003. She was a sixth-grade teacher in the Hingham school system from 1995-2000 and taught third, fourth and fifth grade in Hull from 1992-1994.

Prior to those positions, she also was director and owner of the Children’s Performing Arts Center in Hull and Hingham, was a school counselor at Country Academy Day School in Weymouth and a Massachusetts Department of Social Services senior social worker in Brockton.

While there are no guarantees Toole will be appointed principal of the middle school, she has thrown her hat in the ring for the vacant principalships at the middle and elementary schools, said Pellicone.

Lynne Kalman retired as principal of Cyrus Peirce at the end of the last school year, and last May, Paul Koulouris, elementary school principal, said he would not seek reappointment after serving one year.

Assistant school superintendent Carlos Colley is serving as the interim principal of the elementary school until June 2008.

Toole will take the reins as interim middle school principal Jan. 14. Her start date will overlap two weeks with the current interim principal, Barbara White, a retired CPS middle school history teacher with principal certification. White agreed to serve the district this September until the end of January after three off-island candidates were offered the position, but declined, leaving the middle school without a head administrator. White receives a daily rate, which is prorated to $108,000 a year, and does not receive benefits or holiday pay.

Toole, who has ties to the Cape and owns a house in Dennis, said she had not been thinking about leaving her executive-level position in state government until she saw the advertisement for the two principal positions in the paper.

“At the time I saw the ad, I was not looking to leave here. It sounded very intriguing,” said Toole, who has visited the island many times. “I work with superintendents and principals all across the state and my heart is in the school. After meeting with the superintendent and assistant superintendent, I think we are aligned in terms of improving student achievement.”

Toole, who is single and the parent of two adult children, plans on moving to the island. She will be here over Christmas weekend looking for housing.

While she did not meet yet with teachers and community members, Toole said she was told by school officials that the school is the heartbeat of the community. “I look forward to meeting and speaking with teachers and community members,” she said.

“I live in Hull,” added Toole. “In the winter time, the town closes down and is dead and in the summer time it is bursting.”

Toole’s references include David Driscoll, former commissioner of the state Department of Education; Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents; and Nadya Higgins, executive director of the Massachusetts Elementary School Principal Association.

A graduate of Emerson College with a bachelor’s degree in theater education, Toole has a master’s in elementary education from Cambridge College and is a doctoral candidate in educational leadership from Lesley University.

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